Harness Racing

Certainly the most fittingly named harness horse in 1998 was Moni Maker. The five-year-old American mare raced on two continents and made money everywhere she went. Moni Maker towered over her foes in stature and in ability. Because of her size she did not reach top form until she was three years old, and then she never stopped improving. By 1998 she was unquestionably the best trotter in the world.

Moni Maker’s Swedish-born trainer, Jimmy Takter, took her to Europe in early 1998 looking for worthy opponents. Takter knew she might not be in peak form at first, but the one race he coveted was the Elitlopp ("Elite race") in Stockholm in May. Moni Maker competed in races in Italy and Norway to prepare for the Elitlopp, and what she did to her foes in the Swedish race left Takter in awe. He said that it was perhaps the greatest racing performance ever, and certainly few of the 35,000 spectators would argue. Moni Maker and driver Wally Hennessey sat on the outside of rival Huxtable Hornline in the final heat, a tactic that often spells doom, but Hennessey had confidence in the big mare. When he asked her to trot, she astonished the crowd by leaving her pursuers in the dust to win in a record time of 1 min 53.3 sec. The bay mare later returned to the U.S. and humbled the best trotters there in some midsummer classics before returning to Europe in November.

While Moni Maker was making headlines with her accomplishments, two three-year-old colts were making headlines for what they almost did. The trotter Muscles Yankee and the pacer Shady Character won the first two legs of the Triple Crowns for their gaits, but each failed in the third leg.

When Muscles Yankee won the $1 million Hambletonian, the first leg of the Triple Crown for trotters, at the Meadowlands in early August, harness racing thought that a new star had arrived. He was so superior to his opponents that many of his pursuers in the Hambletonian opted not to race in the Yonkers Trot, the second leg of the Triple Crown. Muscles Yankee also won that race easily. Many then conceded the third leg of the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Futurity, to the two-time winner. The track even held a Triple Crown party on the eve of the race. No one, however, told the trotter Trade Balance and trainer-driver David Wade that Muscles Yankee could not be beaten. Wade launched an aggressive challenge in the opening heat, and Muscles Yankee surprisingly capitulated. Muscles Yankee had a chance to salvage the Triple Crown in the race’s second heat, but once again Trade Balance outdueled the favourite to end his Triple Crown quest.

Among the three-year-old pacers Shady Character won the Cane Pace and the Little Brown Jug in close finishes to set up a try for the Triple Crown. In the Messenger Stakes, however, Fit for Life triumphed, as Shady Character finished sixth in the final heat.

France’s greatest trotting classic, the Prix d’Amerique, was won by the seven-year-old mare Dryade des Bois, driven by Jos Verbeeck of Belgium, a driver with such an uncanny skill for getting the best from a horse that he was widely called "Magic Jos." In 1998 American driver Walter Case became the first person to win more than 1,000 races in a single season. Competing primarily at Yonkers Raceway in New York, he passed the former record of 853 wins in a single season.

Steeplechasing

Cool Dawn, a former point-to-pointer, was a 25-1 winner of the 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup, but there were no shocks in the Champion Hurdle, in which the Irish-trained Istabraq scored by 12 lengths. Earth Summit won the Grand National, adding what was clearly the world’s richest race over jumps to earlier successes in the Scottish (in 1994) and Welsh versions (1997). The Grand National again triggered controversy as three horses were killed during the race and only 6 of the 37 starters completed the course.

François Doumen trained the winner of the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris for the fifth time since 1991 when First Gold (his fourth individual winner) was successful in May. Al Capone II, the 1997 winner, missed the Grand-Steeple but showed that he was still the top French jumper when he won the richest end-of-season chase, the Prix La Haye Jousselin, for the sixth consecutive year.

Show Jumping and Dressage

Rodrigo Pessoa from Brazil, winner of the World Cup at Helsinki, Fin., in April 1998, in October went on to become the youngest show jumping world champion. Pessoa, the 25-year-old son of Nelson Pessoa, rode his father’s Baloubet du Rouet in Finland but switched to Gandini Lianos for the World Equestrian Games (WEG) in Rome. Franke Sloothaak, who was second in Rome on San Patrignano Joly, was also a member of the victorious German quartet in the WEG team competition.

Isabell Werth on Nissan Gigolo retained the world title in the four-day dressage competition at the WEG by the narrowest of margins from Anky van Grunsven on Gestion Bonfire. Germany’s all-female quartet, led by Werth and including three of the top four individuals, won the team event. New Zealanders reigned supreme in horse trials and, with four riders in the top five, easily won the team competition at the WEG.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.